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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29742789">Adore</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilchimpy/pseuds/lilchimpy'>lilchimpy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Law &amp; Order: SVU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:34:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29742789</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilchimpy/pseuds/lilchimpy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A short inspired by the song "Adore" by Amy Shark</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Adore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I do not own the lyrics used in the story, those belong to Amy Shark.<br/>I do not own the characters, those belong to Dick Wolf and NBC.<br/>This song and Alexa didn't exist around the time this story would probably take place canonically, so it takes place in the cannon of my brain only. :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Olivia Benson walked into her apartment and then leaned back against the closed door, for the briefest of moments. She took in a breath, let out a sigh and then proceeded to hang up her coat and throw her keys on the little table that sat in her entry way. She made her way slowly into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine as she told Alexa to start playing “Adore” by Amy Shark. As the languid guitar notes started filling her small apartment, her eyes became unfocused and she began thinking about the evening.</p><p>
  <strong>“But I had a great night ‘cause you kept rubbing against my arm…”</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Olivia, Elliot Stabler, John Munch and Fin Tutuola were at a bar, drinking to solving a difficult case that had consumed them the past several weeks. The liquor and beer were flowing, laughter was filling the air for the first time since Munch had caught the case, and spirits were high. Olivia and Elliot sat on one side of the booth while Munch and Fin took up the other. Elliot sat close to Olivia, so close she could smell all the smells that made up Elliot. The warm scent of his leather jacket, the woodsy undertones of his faded cologne, the faint salty aroma of sweat. His upper arm would brush against hers, and every single time she would feel an electric jolt where the contact was made, starting in her arm and working its way through her whole body, ending in butterflies in her stomach…</em>
</p><p>Olivia rubbed her hand over her stomach at the memory. She had always had feelings for Elliot, since the first day they met. But she had worked so hard to squash them down. But now? Elliot and his wife have been divorced for 6 months. Now? She began to notice every time he made contact with her and allowed herself to feel whatever feelings it sent crashing around her. Now? She allowed herself to daydream about what a life might be like with him. Not just fantasize about the bedroom, but an actual life. Now? She wanted him more than ever.</p><p>
  <strong>“Give me a drink I get drunk off one sip just so I can adore you…”</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Olivia drank her alcohol with abandon, knowing that the squad knew she was more lighthearted, more free, when she had a few in her. So after the first few drinks were downed, Olivia started initiating contact more and more with Elliot. Playful pushes, gentle ‘slaps’ on his arm, ducking her head and smiling up at him, her eyes trying to tell him what her mouth was terrified of saying. </em>
</p><p>Olivia groaned as memories of the night continued to come to her, influenced by the lyrics of the song that somehow fit how she felt more perfectly than any song had the right to fit. If only he felt the same. Sure, they had flirted throughout the years, but it had always been innocent, both of them knowing he was married, both of them never really meaning the things they were saying. Well, she sure meant them, but there was no way in hell she was ever going to let him know she did. Their relationship, their friendship, their partnership was so important. It was not worth the risk to go any further than the innocent flirting that they were both accustomed to. Sure, there had been moments when she had thought she had seen his eyes linger on her when he thought she wasn’t looking, or when he would hold on to her arm a few seconds longer than was really necessary, a fire growing in her as his touch ignited the flame. But really. That was just the wishful thinking of an unrequited crush. She snorted into her wine. Crush? No. This was love. True, deep, so wrong it felt right love. Another sip of wine as she came to the realization she had tried to deny for so long. She was in love with Elliot Stabler. Fuck.</p><p>
  <strong>“Watch me watch him talk to girls…”</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Olivia watched as Elliot went up to the bar to grab another round for the table. Across from her, Fin and Munch had started arguing over another one of Munch’s crazy conspiracy theories. Her eyes glanced across the table at them, laughing and rolling her eyes. Those two. They fought like an old married couple. Seeing they were so deep down the rabbit hole that they were pretty much ignoring her, she turned back towards Elliot and her heart stopped beating for a moment. He was talking to a girl. No, a woman. Elliot Stabler was talking to a woman. A beautiful woman. Olivia felt her breath catch in her throat and heard the gasp that escaped her lips, praying to the dear lord above that the two knuckleheads across from her didn’t hear. A quick diversion of the eyes confirmed that the double shooter Kennedy conspiracy had kept them distracted from her obvious trip into Jealousy Town, population one. She turned her attention back onto Elliot, and her heart finally decided to start beating again. While the woman was clearly trying to get him to do…something (she had a good idea what it was), Olivia was pleased to see that Elliot didn’t appear to be all that interested. He pulled his arm out of her grasp, gently, and waved toward the booth that he had been occupying a short time ago. He smiled at her and then turned, hands full of drinks, and made his way back to the booth. ‘Another rum and coke for the beautiful lady’ (her breath quickened imperceptibly at that) and two more beers for the Conspiracy King and his Jester.’ Fin and Munch finally quit their bickering to thank the man for the proffered drinks, laughing. He slid back into the booth, letting his arm come to rest on the back of the seat behind Olivia. Shit. This night was the night she was finally going to die because she just couldn’t take much more of this.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>“…my head’s getting heavy pressed into your arm…”</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>As the night went on, the group of four started making the typical motions of people getting ready to leave, but maybe not quite wanting to. ‘Well, it’s gettin’ late’ Fin said, stretching his arms above his head and checking the time on his watch. ‘I guess it is,’ Munch responded. Olivia, without thinking, had let her head drop onto Elliot’s shoulder, her eyes closed, a small smile playing on her lips. ‘I don’t know if I can move,’ she mumbled to the group. ‘I haven’t felt this relaxed in a while.’ Elliot slowly turned toward her, allowing her time to pick her head up off him, which made her feel like her world was about to crash down around her, like she was losing a part of her. God, why was she being so melodramatic? He didn’t belong to her; she didn’t belong to him. But for those couple of minutes when her head was resting on him, with her eyes closed to drown out everyone else…for those couple of minutes, she felt like she did belong to him…</em>
</p><p>She set the glass of wine down as the song made its way to its beautiful conclusion. She sighed again, man she seemed to do a lot of that these days. She picked the wine back up as Alexa said, “End of list. Starting over…” and the guitar chords began their melancholy twanging again. She took a few more sips, letting the dry wine dance over her mouth. She retreated to her bedroom to change into sweatpants, and as she emerged the words of the song took her back to earlier that night again.</p><p>
  <strong>“Squeezing in and out of these dresses, I wanna be found…by you…”</strong>
</p><p><em>‘I have to go home and change!’ Olivia protested. ‘I’ve worn these same clothes for 3 days straight. There’s no way I can go to a bar in this!’ She laughed, promised the guys she’d be at the bar in 30 minutes and caught a cab home. Once in her bedroom she pulled out the new dress she had bought a few weekends ago. She hadn’t worn it yet. Should she wear it tonight? Would it be too obvious what she was trying to do? What </em>was<em> she trying to do? Her brain laughed at her. ‘You’re trying to win over Elliot, duh.’ She sighed. Her brain was right. ‘Fuck it. I’m wearing it’ she thought, throwing the emerald green dress on. Minutes later when she entered the bar, the three men all wolf-whistled at her, acknowledging the dress. Was it her imagination, or did something different than the two other men flash across Elliot’s eyes? Did his eyes linger on her legs a beat longer than they should have? Were his cheeks flushing with the crimson wash that meant he was thinking things about her she only ever dreamed he would think about her? But the moment passed and he was laughing with Fin and Munch again, same Elliot as ever, and they all went into normal conversation and the dress was forgotten about.</em></p><p>She walked back to the counter and finished off the glass of wine in one smooth drink, enjoying the way it felt as it slid down her throat. She reached over and poured herself another glass, listening to the song as it began to near towards the end one last time, her thoughts wondering what she was going to do. She certainly can’t continue on in this way. Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.</p><p>---</p><p>Elliot, Fin and Munch were at the bar, waiting for Olivia to show up. They were chatting, laughing, talking about the monotonous things that they usually talked about the times they finally caught the bad guy, the times they actually had something to celebrate and didn’t want to waste one more brain cell on the case, at least for a few hours. These were the nights, man. The nights it was all worth it. The nights that made up for all the times they didn’t catch the bad guy. And Christ, it felt <em>good.</em> Suddenly Fin said, “Whoa, guys, check out Liv.” Elliot turned towards the door, and Munch leaned across Fin to get a better look. There was Olivia. Walking across the bar towards them. In a <em>dress</em>. Not just any dress, either. <em>T</em><em>he</em> dress. The dress that was going to give him a heart attack, right then and there. The dress that was finally going to cause him to fuck up and lay all his cards out on the table. The cards that said, “I Love You.” This dress was going to cause him to fan those cards out for the whole world to see and in that brief moment, he didn’t care. Fin and Munch gave her a few wolf whistles and teased her as she neared the booth. Elliot couldn’t have joined the wolf whistle if he tried. His throat was closing and his breath was stopping and Jesus his heart was hurting and her legs fuck look at her legs did she always have legs fuck you’ve gotta stop staring at her legs and holy shit am I blushing. He painfully tore his eyes away from her legs and he fake laughed along with Fin and Munch’s real laugh and prayed to God no one noticed the mini break down he had in the 10 seconds it took Olivia to reach them. He stood up and let her get into the booth, his mouth still refusing to work the way a normal mouth would work, his brain still not letting him focus on anything other than Olivia.</p><p>The conversation saved him. Thank Christ, the conversation saved him. Fin and Munch saved him, for steering the conversation to something normal, something sane. Something that could make him forget about seeing Olivia in that dress. They all talked and laughed together, the conversation flowing freely and easily among the detectives. The drinks were flowing easily as well, but not freely. They were taking turns buying the rounds as was their tradition. His turn was coming up soon, but he didn’t want to leave the booth, didn’t want to leave Olivia. As they sat next to each other he had become painfully aware that their shoulders were touching a lot more than they usually did when they sat next to each other. Each bump and touch made him ache in the pit of his stomach, made him almost cry. For fuck’s sake.</p><p>How could something as simple as a shoulder bumping into his make him want to cry? For the most simple reason of all. It was Olivia’s shoulder. He was very sure she didn’t know it, but ever since they had first met he had feelings for her. Of course he could never do anything about it, he had been married the majority of their career together. But these past six months?` Man. These past six months he had been single. And now, every time he innocently flirted with her (same as he did all the years prior), he wondered if she knew that it wasn’t so innocent anymore. Did she know how he really felt? Did she know that every time he saw her he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and just hold her? Kiss her hair, kiss her forehead, stare into her eyes and just be? How do you even tell someone that’s how you feel? Where would he ever begin? And the worst part, he was pretty sure she didn’t feel the same way. At least, he had thought she didn’t feel the same way. Tonight, the way her shoulder found every excuse to bump into his, her eyes sparkling just a little bit more every time they made eye contact, the playful way she slapped at his arm when he made dumb jokes; tonight he didn’t know what to think anymore. “Elliot, your turn man. My glass has turned dry,” Fin interrupted his thoughts. He looked at the other glasses on the table.</p><p>“Alright alright, my turn. I’ll be right back.” He made his way to the bar and started talking to the bar tender, ordering three beers and one rum and coke. As he waited a woman sat down next to him and smiled up at him.</p><p>“You’re awfully cute, what’s your name?” she said, gazing up at him from where she perched on the stool. Elliot looked down at her.</p><p>“Elliot. Nice to meet you.”</p><p>She grasped his arm with her hand and started talking to him, trying to win him over. “Well, Elliot, you look like a man that knows what he wants. So tell me, what do you want?”</p><p>He looked down at the hand that grasped his arm, then looked back at the booth where his friends and his Olivia were. (His Olivia. What kind of thought was that?) Fin and Munch were arguing in a friendly way about something, he guessed it was a conspiracy. Olivia was watching them, he thought he could see her eyes rolling from where he was standing. His heart leapt at the sight of her. He turned back to the woman that was holding him. “You seem like a nice woman, but sorry, tonight I just want to hang out with my friends.” He turned ever so slightly so she had to let go of his arm and gestured to his group back at the booth. He collected the drinks the bartender had set down in front of him, smiled at the woman who now seemed pissed that he was blowing her off (she was pretty, just nowhere near as pretty as Olivia), and made his way back to the table. He set the drinks down. “Another rum and coke for the beautiful lady,” (did her breathing change or was he imagining things?) “and two more beers for the Conspiracy King and his Jester.” Fin and Munch laughed and thanked Elliot for the drinks. He settled back into the booth and before his mind could protest the action, he draped his arm across the back of the seat, behind Olivia. But close enough that he could feel her heat radiating through his jacket. It felt like the sun and how he wanted to worship it.</p><p>As the night wore on, Olivia’s head slowly had worked its way onto Elliot’s shoulder, and this time is was his turn to have his breath quicken. Her hair was inches from his face and all he could do was breathe in her scent. She smelled so deliciously like Olivia. The lavender scent from her shampoo and conditioner, the faint vanilla of her lotion, the more flowery scent of her body spray. It was all Olivia and it was all he could do to keep himself from burying his face in her hair to breathe in her scent more deeply. Fuck. This night needed to end before he did something stupid and ridiculous. Thankfully, Fin stretched and looked at his watch and started commenting about how late it was and Munch was responding that he guessed it was and thus began the ritual of getting ready to leave the bar. These were the motions they did every time they began to head out and he found comfort in the familiarity. They helped bring his head back to reality and out of the clouds where he and Olivia were married and having their own kids and living in bliss for eternity.</p><p>“I don’t know if I can move. I haven’t felt this relaxed in a while,” a tired sounding voice mumbled from below his chin, and he glanced down at the beautiful woman. She might not know if she can move, but he knew for a fact he didn’t <em>want</em> her to move. He wanted to them to stay exactly as they were, forever. But he knew they couldn’t, so he slowly turned his body towards her, giving her time and allowing her, begrudgingly, to move her head from where it had nestled into his shoulder. She sighed as she lifted her head and looked at him. His heart froze again, her eyes were sparkling at him, her mouth was pulled into a smile, and just for the briefest of moments it was just the two of them. The rest of the bar, hell, the rest of New York had disappeared, leaving just the two of them. He wanted to touch her, caress her face, pull her towards him, kiss her lips. But then she turned away, and it was like the lights dimmed. She joked around with Fin and Munch as he slid out of the booth. He couldn’t even focus on what they were saying, his mind and thoughts consumed by her. A few minutes later he was surprised to see that they were all standing outside the bar, waiting for cabs to come by and pick them up and deposit them at their respective apartments. The men, being the gentlemen that they were, let Olivia take the first cab. Elliot, being the man that he was, let Fin and Munch take the next two. A few minutes later he was slumped in the back seat of his own cab, speeding away towards his quiet apartment. The quiet apartment that he lived in alone. The quiet apartment that didn’t have Olivia in it. That’s not what he wanted. Fuck. That’s not what he wanted at all.</p><p>“Driver,” he caught the driver’s attention. “Change of plans.” He told the driver the new destination he had in mind, and sank back into the seat again, excited and nervous and scared and anxious and happy. He looked out his window as the cab drove down the street, taking Elliot to what he wanted.</p><p>---</p><p>The knock on the door came again, a little more forcefully this time. Olivia looked out her peephole and her heart jumped up into her throat. She quickly opened the door. “Elliot,” she breathed, her voice betraying her by clearly telegraphing the love that she felt at seeing him show up at her place unexpectedly. “Liv,” he whispered back to her, the tone of his voice and the shine in his eyes clearly showing Olivia that what she wanted was only two feet away. The song continued to play behind her, the last words echoing in her small apartment, the lyrics ringing as clear as day to the two souls standing in the doorway.</p><p>
  <strong>“Just to adore you…</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>I adore you.”</strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ever since recently discovering and getting into SVU fan fic, I have been listening to this song a lot, for some reason. And this short just sort of took over my brain and I had to get it out. I had the story pictured so perfectly in my head, especially the ending, that I don't know if I've done justice to what I was thinking, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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